DA’s public campaign ban raises eyebrows and questions
Party values questioned as ban is placed on broadcast of debates.
The DA’s decision to limit public campaigning and hold no televised debates ahead of its federal congress might limit the risk of broadcasting internal divisions, but raises questions about the party’s values – and almost ensures the election of the interim leader.
DA leadership candidates John Steenhuisen and Mbali Ntuli will face off in two virtual debates ahead of the federal congress next weekend, but neither will be publicly broadcast after the party took a decision in September to prohibit public campaigning.
The party ban on public campaigns in the media has probably cemented what was already an almost-certain victory for Steenhuisen, elected interim leader after Mmusi Maimane’s resignation, and has raised questions about its commitment to transparency.
On the surface, Steenhuisen and Ntuli, a former DA Youth leader and KwaZulu-Natal MPL, employed radically different strategies in their campaigns. Steenhuisen largely kept his campaign in-house while Ntuli took the race public, building her profile by courting media attention and challenging her opponent to a series of public debates.
But, as interim leader, Steenhuisen is the face and voice of the DA. He issues press statements slamming President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC. The statements refer to him as “leader” rather than “interim leader”.
During the harsher levels of the Covid-19 lockdown, he hosted his own online YouTube show, CoronaCast.
Several provincial DA leaders have already endorsed Steenhuisen and the party’s current leaders appeared firmly in control at the DA’s recent policy conference. Many of those leaders appear to back Steenhuisen.
Ntuli has publicly clashed with federal council chairperson Helen Zille, whom political analyst Steven Friedman has called the DA’s “probable leader, if not in title”.
To stand a chance, Ntuli needed to take the contest public. She challenged Steenhuisen to four televised debates, saying the party’s internal elections mattered for public elections.
Ntuli planned to hold an online public town hall meeting on Thursday, which she cancelled after the party’s presiding officers said it should be limited to DA members.
“It would be a point of significant regression were it to be that a liberal party, especially those who wish to lead one, determined that their ideology and internal culture was so fragile and weak that it could not withstand the scrutiny of a public debate process when electing their most public representatives,” she explained. “We cannot opine about the need for openness and transparency, but then deny it when it comes to the very engine which drives the party and expands our ideological resonance in the population.”
Steenhuisen, who had much to lose and little to gain from a public debate and reportedly feared that his opponent would focus on issues of race, appeared to favour keeping the contest internal.
“While it might be popular with commentators and Twitter to attack your own party, I have chosen to rather be forthright with you in these meetings,” Steenhuisen wrote to party members.
Despite holding a public debate between party leadership candidates Mmusi Maimane and Wilmot James in 2015, the DA has emphasised that the current contest is an internal matter.
Public debates could further splinter the party and dent its public image ahead of the 2021 local government elections.
Political analyst David Silke said: “I think that the party has missed an opportunity to perhaps use the electoral leadership contest to really present more of an expansive or outward message to the broader South Africa. It’s been such a long process over the pandemic period and the process itself could very well have been more public.”
Political analyst Professor Somadoda Fikeni said the DA’s image would be dented by the decision to limit public debate. He said many people would view it as an attempt by the DA establishment, defined by Zille, to stifle a young black female leader, Ntuli.
He said the public would call out the DA’s hypocrisy “precisely because the DA had always been calling for transparency; had been calling for televised debates by the political party leaders [in elections].
“The same logic extended to them is the one that’s seemingly not accepted [by the party] and people will not make the distinction that this is an inner-party issue. All they’ll know is that the DA had always used the logic of disclosing and being transparent and calling for public debates.”
About 2,000 DA delegates will meet online next weekend to elect party leaders. Delegates can also vote at designated physical voting stations. The party said it has tested its online systems and is ready for the unprecedented gathering.
Public debates could further splinter the party and dent its public image ahead of the 2021 local government elections.